Two additional “Change Over Time” galleries will conclude the exhibit: “The Old Museum” will show specimens in glass display cases the way museums used to show them; in “Memory Attic” you’ll be able to “Tell your story. Leave a message for a stranger. Talk to a friend,” according to the exhibit’s proposal.

And you can ponder, “What will the future bring?”

San Diego Natural History Museum

Founded: 1874

Mission: “To interpret the natural world through research, education and exhibits; to promote understanding of the evolution and diversity of Southern California and the peninsula of Baja California; and to inspire in all a respect for nature and the environment.”

Traveling exhibitions

The “Maya: Hidden Worlds Revealed” exhibit, which at 12,000 square feet will occupy more space than “Habitat Journey,” aims to invite visitors to “explore the world of the Maya” and engage in the process of discovery to learn how archaeologists use science, technology and contemporary Maya voices to interpret the past, according to the proposal. Organized around the Maya’s three realms — Under World, Celestial World and Earthly World — it opens at the Science Museum of Minnesota this June before coming to San Diego in 2015.

“Aqua,” which is still tentative, employees 360-degree projections, 3-D technology, music, visual effects and “water installations” that aim to make the visitor more than just a spectator. During a guided, 30-minute journey through the exhibit’s three spaces, each member of the group carries a “glowing drop of water” that is programmed to interact with distinct elements of the exhibition.

Public access

If you visit the Natural History Museum this week and want to use the research library, you’d better have an appointment and be a scholar or researcher of note, otherwise you might get put off by the “authorized personnel only” sign in front of the library’s closed doors.

“It’s not very welcoming,” Hager said.

He and the museum are going to change that in 2015. The library’s entry will be reconfigured and the current research room remodeled into a gallery that will show selections from the thousands of rare books, field notes, diaries, historic photos, maps and who-knows-what. The public would also have more access to museum’s research materials.

Pride of place in the gallery will be an exceptionally rare copy of the Double Elephant Folio of J.J. Audubon’s “Birds of America,” shown in a climate-controlled case.

“There were only 100 of these books ever printed,” Hager said. “Most of them were cut up for art prints, so there aren’t very many of them left, probably a dozen or so. And we’ve got one that’s never been shown.”

The Audubon book, in which his exquisitely detailed drawings are life-size, will be part of the gallery’s inaugural exhibition, “Extraordinary Ideas From Ordinary People: A History of Citizen Science.” It will showcase works by individuals like Audubon, who had no formal scientific training but made huge scientific contributions.

The proposal for the project suggests that the gallery will inspire visitors to have a new vision about science: “That science is a conversation carried forward by curiosity, art, language, imagination, and the drive to look closely and ask questions, and anyone with these tools can contribute.”